Shirley Jackson died in 1965 at the age of forty-eight, by my reckoning about fifty years too soon, cuz dang... that woman knew how to craft a story. ...Castle is our March read for the Classics Book group, and I look forward to our meeting. Mary Katherine Blackwood, or Merricat, lives with her older sister Constance and her aged Uncle Julian in a large house on a hill above a village. Merricat is the family's link to the outside world, making bi-weekly trips to the grocery and the library, in spite of the fact that she is stared at and mocked while doing so. But Constance can't venture beyond the vegetable garden adjacent to the house, and Uncle Julian is bedridden, so it falls to Merricat to keep the others provisioned and safe through a combination of spells, buried objects, and talismans that protect the boundaries of the property.
Why do the villagers hate Merricat? Why is Constance confined to the yard? What exactly is Uncle Julian writing about in his papers that refer to a 'last day' for the parents, aunt, and little brother of Merricat and Constance? And are they all quite in their right minds?
A deliriously good study in creeping menace and evil in a claustrophobic New England town. I loved it!
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